Jon Gress

Jon Gress
CEO
The Metaverse Construction Company LLC

With over 30 years of experience in motion picture, visual effects, immersive media technologies, production and education, Jon Gress has been on the cutting edge of digital production technologies since their inceptions and has done research, development, consulting and training for VFX, Immersive,
Real-time, 3D, CGI, 360 Degree, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Stereoscopic 3D,
Photogrammetry, Dense Mapping, 3D Scanning, 3D Printing, Motion Tracking, Motion Control, Motion Capture, Live Action/Real-Time Animation, Game Engine VFX Integration for Motion Pictures, TV, Internet Media, Marketing & Advertising, Communications and Education.

The Metaverse Construction Company LLC provides clients with turn-key, next-gen, fully immersive, real-time virtual environments for multi-user events, meetings, trainings, showrooms, enterprise, education, entertainment and other Metaverse experiences.

Jon has trained thousands of filmmakers and visual effects artists from all over the world, who have gone on from his training to secure jobs in top visual effects companies and have worked on blockbuster movies and award winning television series including:

24, 47 Ronin, Almost Human, Ant Man, Assassin’s Creed, Captain America, Conan The Barbarian, CSI, Die Hard, Dredd, Fringe, Game of Thrones, GI Joe, Godzilla, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Harry Potter, Hawaii Five-O, Hugo, Iron Man, James Bond, John Carter, Life of Pi, Lost, MIB 3, Mirror Mirror, Narnia,
Need for Speed, Oblivion, Olympus Has Fallen, Oz, Pacific Rim, Pirates of the Caribbean, Riddick, RIPD, Serenity, Snow White and the Huntsman, Spiderman, Stolen, Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, Terra Nova, The Avengers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Expendables, The Fast and the Furious,
The Great Gatsby, The Green Hornet, The Green Lantern, The Hobbit, The Hulk, The Hunger Games, The Mechanic, The Twilight Saga, The Walking Dead, The Wolf of Wall Street, Thor, Titanic, Total Recall, Transformers, White House Down, Wolverine, X-Men, and many many more). ( <—feel free to pare this list down, this was what was on my Author bio) Jon is a member of The Visual Effects Society (a global professional honorary society and the entertainment industry’s only organization representing the full breadth of visual effects practitioners with over 4,000 members in more than 40 countries worldwide), co-chair for the global VRARA Universities & Colleges Committee, member of the Virtual Worlds Society and Themed Entertainments Association, a published Pearson Higher Education author (“Digital Visual Effects & Compositing”, the complete college curriculum textbook & instructor’s guide used in colleges all over the world), has been a regular writer/columnist for motion picture industry trade publications and has produced, been a keynote speaker & evangelist for motion picture visual effects and immersive production technologies, directed and supervised hundreds of motion picture, television, VFX and cutting edge interactive multimedia & immersive productions (for institutions ranging from small independent to Fortune 100) since 1995. Jon was previously the Academic Director for The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School at Universal Studios, Orlando FL bringing them decades of expertise, research and development in cutting edge motion picture visual effects, real-time, immersive, and visualization technologies such as 3D Stereoscopic Imaging, 3D Photogrammetry, 360 & 180 VR photo/video, 3D motion tracking, capture & motion control, the integration of these into real-time visualization, VR, AR, MxR & Virtual Production development for Motion Pictures, Games, 3D Visual Effects and Fully Immersive Virtual Environments.

Peta Estens

Peta is an experienced teacher, researcher and award-winning digital designer specialising in immersive technologies. She designed Pangaea Minds, an educational framework using virtual worlds to connect schools for global team-teaching and student collaboration. Peta has recently led the design of VR and AR solutions for NSW Transport and the Music Performance Industry. Her research in Immersive Design at UNSW was a catalyst for her strong interest in ethics, regulation, and governance specific to the metaverse. She is the Director of XR Global Citizenship and Education at XRSI.org and is currently studying Cyber Law at Deakin University. As a classroom teacher, she is committed to empowering teachers, parents, and students in their understanding of the opportunities, challenges, and risks associated with belonging to virtual worlds and the metaverse. Peta is also winner of the 2021 Immersive Learning Research Network: Best Immersive Learning Project. Pangaea Minds is a truly innovative and global approach to equip students with the attitude and aptitude for conquering the serious economic, political, health, and climate challenges our current leaders are grappling with.

Sage Freeman

I am an Instructional Media Specialist working at Chemeketa Community College in the Center for Academic Innovation on a faculty support team. I specialize in instructional media and work with faculty on content creation, use of technology and media, best practices and pedagogical use of media, media enabled classroom technology, and more. My former professional background was in video game development prior to working in higher education.

Dylan Fox

Dylan is a UX design and accessibility consultant specializing in virtual, mixed, and augmented reality (XR). As the Coordination and Engagement Team lead for XR Access, he helps organizations invested in XR stay up-to-date on the latest accessibility guidelines and helps find solutions to novel accessibility challenges. He also conducts ongoing research at UC Berkeley on how AR can be used to help people with visual impairments.

Rebecca DuPont

For fifteen years, Dr. DuPont has taught multimedia communications across the greater Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Her areas of focus include VR and AR, Web design and development along with Video Game design and development. Dr. DuPont continues to provide education in these areas through her position at Community College of Allegheny County. Her passions include providing opportunities to students and members of the community to gain hands-on experience with these cutting-edge technologies and providing Open Source Educational materials to encourage others to offer opportunities to their communities.

Stylianos Mystakidis

Dr. Stylianos Mystakidis is a Learning Innovator and Researcher at the University of Patras, Greece, as well as Professor-Counselor at the Hellenic Open University, Greece. His areas of professional expertise and research are Learning Innovation, Metaverse, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Gamification, Serious Games, Open Education and Continuous Professional Development. He has published over 60 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, conference proceedings and books on the previous topics.

He has extensive teaching experience in European (Spain, United Kingdom, Greece, Cyprus) and US universities. In 2020, he co-designed and developed as lead author the official 2-ECTS blended learning course for all educators of Cyprus on “Augmented and Virtual Reality in Teaching and Learning”. He has also designed, developed and managed an innovative, awarded-winning MOOC using playful design and Multiuser Virtual Worlds. He has participated as certified project manager (PMP) and researcher in eleven international projects.

His formal studies include a Ph.D. at the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä (Finland), a MA in Education in Virtual Worlds at the University of West of England Bristol (United Kingdom), a MSc in Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens (Greece) and a Postgraduate Certificate at the Open University of Catalonia (Spain).
List of publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stylianos-Mystakidis

Nigel Newbutt

I am an Assistant Professor in the College of Education, at the University of Florida and have experience of developing technologies with autistic, and underserved groups, which started in my undergraduate work exploring multimedia programs for a deaf community in the U.K. I am currently interested in examining and developing the role that VR HMDs can play in supporting young people with autism in their daily lives; informed by their input. The aim of my work is to co-design the future of this field (VR and autism) with autistic communities and other important stakeholders. More than this, I am also interested in developing a range of innovative technologies that can help to enable people with neuro-diversity.

Samantha Wolfe

Samantha G. Wolfe is the Founder of PitchFWD, a strategic consultancy focused on the acceleration adoption of emerging technologies. She works with some of the most innovative companies in VR, AR, haptics, and the metaverse on branding, marketing, and business strategies. Sam is an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School teaching The Business of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, The Marketing of Innovation, and Avatars and Virtual Humans, all courses she created and developed. She has authored two books Metaversed (yet to be announced), Marketing New Realities, and contributed a chapter to Charlie Fink\’s Convergence.

Evan Gappelberg

Mr. Gappelberg is an accomplished entrepreneur with an expertise in creating, funding and running start-ups, as well as extensive experience both as a hands-on operating executive and as a public markets professional.

From 2000 to 2005, Mr. Gappelberg was the co-founder and CEO of EG Products where he funded, patented, imported and distributed the market’s first LED light-up toy. He secured license deals from Disney, Universal Studios, Clear Channel Communication and built a national sales channel, setting the foundation to land contracts with Walgreen\’s, Macy’s, and live event shows like Ringling Bros.

He was also co-founder and CEO of an app development company which created and published over 200 successful apps for both Apples iTunes store and the Google Play store. Prior to being a successful entrepreneur, Mr. Gappelberg worked on Wall Street and has more than 20 years of extensive experience as both a hedge fund manager and Senior Vice President of Finance.

In 2018, he founded Nextech AR Solutions and is the current CEO of the Company.